A veteran hockey player and a rookie can’t get away from each other—or their own desires—in this sexy, heartfelt opposites-attract hockey romance.
Olly Järvinen has a long way to go. He’s got a fresh start playing for a new team, but getting his hockey career back on track is going to take more than a change of scenery. He’s got to shut his past out and focus. On the game, not on his rookie roommate and his annoyingly sunny disposition—and annoyingly distracting good looks.
All Benji Bryzinski ever wanted was to play in the big leagues, and he’s not going to waste one single second of his rookie season. Yoga, kale smoothies and guided meditation help keep his head in the game. But his roommate keeps knocking him off track. Maybe it’s just that Olly is a grumpy bastard. Or maybe it’s something else, something Benji doesn’t have a name for yet.
Olly and Benji spend all their time together—on the ice, in the locker room, in their apartment—and ignoring their unspoken feelings isn’t making them go away. Acting on attraction is one thing, but turning a season’s fling into forever would mean facing the past—and redefining the future.
🏒 hockey players
👨❤️👨 roommates to lovers
🏥injuries (hockey), violence
A veteran hockey player and a rookie are assigned to be roommates when the season begins. They spend a lot of time together and while, at first, they may think they don’t mesh because they are so different, they end up being good for one another.
Olly has faced a lot of pressure in his hockey life. His father has applied a lot of pressure to him, calling him out when he didn’t understand that his son was struggling. Olly has a lot of weight on his broad shoulders. At the beginning of the book, he has come down square on the side of trying to push things down and hold himself together with sheer willpower. Turns out though, it doesn’t work all that well.
I connected with both characters early in the book. The author did a great job of creating the each of the MCs. There’s also a well-developed set of supporting characters that round out the world in the book. I was caught up in the world of hockey, the stress, the intensity of everything and the weight on people’s shoulders.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to understand a lot about hockey to read this story. It’s more about the journey the two main characters are on. One of them is struggling to come to terms with the world in which he lives: how can he be himself when it’s caused him so much trouble in his past. The other is more accepting of how things play out in his life. He’s don’t a lot of personal work to deal with his issues and is much more centered. The two men are very different, but they fit together well in the story.
There’s a lot of growth in the characters, even the supporting characters. It’s always a pleasure to read a novel in which the characters grow and change naturally over the course of the story.
A great romance with complex and interesting characters.
Things You May Want To Know: Please be aware, I’m by no means an expert on what may or may not have the potential to disturb people. I simply list things that I think a reader might want to be aware of. In this book: (SPOILERS) hockey violence, angst, family discord, homophobia.
I received an ARC of Season’s Change by Cait Nary from Carina Press via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
Kinzie Things 